The hood that was chosen to replace the original fit the opening very good, but there were still some problems with it and one was that it was off the car for a long time. Somebody was apparently bumping into it regularly, cause it had a lot of small dents.
Small dents especially on the hood rocket launchers
And it was stored standing up outside, so water had collected between the rear brace and hood skin. It was in New Mexico so if not for standing water then it would have been alright, but the rust was so bad on the right rear corner that it was pushing the hood up from the brace. That rear brace under the hood was removed before derusting for better access.
I learned my lesson when working on the fenders about drilling all the spot welds out on one whole flange, especially with a big spot weld bit. I removed the rear brace on a front fender by drilling the spot welds and found that it weakened the shape of the fender, because the spot weld bit was almost as big as the flange. So after two fenders, I started grinding on the brace from the back side to get through the spot welds without cutting on the fender, and that left the fender very rigid, so I used that same idea on the hood. Lucky thing too, with the hood being so flat, it would have really been a mess.
I tried shrinking the flanges on both sides of the corner to bring the hood skin back down but it was just too much for shrinking, so the flange was cut in both directions from the corner and rewelded after the area was pushed down. For some reason the pitting wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.
During its storage time, someone dropped the hood down on its corner and bent it pretty bad, but with that rear brace off, it was an easy fix, although it will require a small amount of lead.
After straightening, the area was still high so I drilled out two spot welds and then was able to just push it down.
The old hood henges still looked good but were worn out and let the back of the hood set up to high, which could have been adjusted, but I put the new henges on for mock up. With everything fitting so well I have decided to use a shim on the front henge bolt to push the hood down a little more in the back, and hope that lessens the change that it will want to go down further, as the car bumps down the road.
I also used Bobs idea of a plastic washer on the bolts for adjusting everything and then remove one at a time.
Strange as it seems, the right front side of the hood was high in the same area that the left side was low, and also for no apparent reason. I knew the right side could easily be filled, but I was going to just live with this side, but stupidity won out.
To correct this the corner brace was removed first.
The plan is to shrink the flange on the fender to bring the front down and in line with the hood. But that is not easy with so many different shapes in this part of the fender, so to get it done, the size of the side flange was reduced to ease the job of the shrinking jaws, and the front flange was also cut.
Bringing it down left the hood and fender even at the bottom and the top.
Still not totally happy with the look of my welds
But penetration is always good, and thats what counts.
A little lead and its done.
I wasn't happy with this area, so had to put some more time on it. Just a little too wavy for me.